Donald Trump has crashed the Republican Party and reversed the fortunes of many of his fellow contenders. But there’s one candidate who’s benefited from the rise of Trump and that’s Ted Cruz. Because of Trump, the Senator from Texas looks like a sensible moderate in comparison. Trump has shifted the Overton window enough to the right that a Cruz nomination and general election victory no longer look like the stuff of fantasy.

What’s interesting is that just a couple months ago, Cruz was just another candidate whose only appeal was with hardcore conservatives – not a good thing in a party where the establishment types tend to call the shots. Cruz is not a ‘team player’ and since stepping foot in Washington has done nothing to endear himself to the Beltway elite. Before the rise of Trump, Cruz’s strategy of going hard right on everything and angering the powers-that-be looked too clever by half.

Now, we could find ourselves in an unusual situation where the GOP establishment turns to Cruz in order to stop Donald Trump. Cruz has few friends in Washington so to do so would be humiliating for the GOP elite, but they’ll do it if he’s the only alternative to Trump.

It’s an interesting possibility but a couple things would have to happen. First, the establishment’s horse will have to fade. Originally their horse was Jeb Bush but he was lapped by Marco Rubio and the big donors are jumping ship. For some reason, Kasich is now getting a lot of buzz. Then there’s Chris Christie, who is starting to show some McCainesque signs of life. One way or another, all of them will have to be rendered non-viable. The establishment move to Cruz will be a desperate one and would probably come only after Trump has won a bunch of primaries and there’s a growing realization that the GOP needs to act quickly to stop him.

A few people think Cruz, as nominee, would go down in flames and take the party with him. I’m not so sure. We live in interesting times and with the nation as polarized as it is, it’s not hard to imagine Cruz being, at the very least, competitive.

And Cruz has Trump to thank for making him look more of a moderate. Shutting down the government over Obamacare looks downright pragmatic when stacked up against Trump’s rhetoric about a Deportation Force and bringing back waterboarding. I’m not saying it will happen but the odds of a President Cruz (and a President Trump, for that matter) are exponentially greater than they were just six months ago.

11 Comments

  1. JC Honeycutt

    Troy–love your comment. Ditto for “disgusted”: the only difference between Cruz and Joe McCarthy, IMHO, is that Cruz is less foul-mouthed and more prissy than McCarthy; so arguably he could grow into McCarthy in full rather than growing up.

  2. Kenneth

    People can’t read I guess. John said Cruz would look moderate by comparison, he said several times he was very conservative.

    • Progressive Wing

      People can’t think critically I guess. If there are two candidates, one of which is ultra-conservative while the other is extremely conservative, neither is a moderate by way of any standard or any comparison.

  3. larry

    Please please please nominate Ted Cruz as your nominee for the 2016 race for president.

  4. Troy

    Here you go, have a dose of moderate Ted Cruz:

    After accepting an endorsement from an activist who has called for the “execution” of abortion providers, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said on Monday that he has never met an anti-abortion activist who has advocated for violence.

    “I have never met, not once, a single pro-life activist who is in favor of violence of any sort. Have you, Senator Cruz?” conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked the Texas senator.
    “I have not,” Cruz responded. “And I would note that this whole episode has really displayed the ugly underbelly of the nation.”

    But days before the Planned Parenthood shooting, Cruz secured an endorsement from someone who has repeatedly advocated for murdering abortion providers, ThinkProgress reported Monday. Troy Newman, who Cruz’s campaign claims is “a driving force in the recent effort to expose Planned Parenthood’s alleged sale of baby parts in a series of undercover videos,” has written that the entire country is “blood-guilty” for its failure to kill “abortionists” and has criticized the conviction of a man who murdered a Florida abortion doctor. ~ excerpt from ‘Think Progress’ website.

    Calling Ted Cruz moderate is like saying a hog waste lagoon is full of dingy albeit potable water. I will concede he is just slightly to the left of his opponent or Pol Pot. But given the metric, that’s not saying a whole lot.

    • Norma Munn

      “Pol Pot” – very apt comparison!

  5. Norma Munn

    I will insist on a triple certified copy of his birth certificate! Repeatedly.

    • edward

      And what about Donald Drumpf aka Trump’s birth certificate? With all the fuss he was making about Obama’s birth certificate several years ago, the news media was not interested in the fact that Donald did not have a copy of a valid birth certificate for himself.

  6. Geeman

    One comment in the Washington Post this morning made it seem that the Republican establishment, such as it is, would prefer Trump to Cruz. Cruz no doubt would do what Barry Goldwater did in ’64 — energize the ever-present hardcore while woefully underperforming what a GOP candidate should get in a general election and bringing down other Republicans with him in any kind of swing district.

    And don’t forget — he was born in Canada!

    • TY Thompson

      Agree that the Establishment will take Trump over Cruz. Forget the birthplace argument, though, “natural born citizen” is a nebulous term whose definition has never been fully defined.

  7. Apply Liberally

    Truly, the following will need to be inducted into “Wynne’s Harebrained Passages Hall of Fame:”

    “…..the Senator from Texas looks like a sensible moderate….”
    ” …..it’s not hard to imagine Cruz being, at the very least, competitive.”
    “…..the odds of a President Cruz (and a President Trump, for that matter) are exponentially greater than they were just six months ago.”

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